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By: Lloyd Brown-John
An old political adage goes something like, “I don’t give a curse about what the media say of me — but did they spell my name correctly?”
There is a remarkable long-standing love-hate relationship between media and politicians. And by “politicians” I include not only those elected but those who crawl the backrooms — those with power and influence, but absolutely no responsibility to anybody but the politician who hired them on.
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Social media has dramatically enhanced the capacity of backroom “anons” (anonymous) to influence public opinion, all in the name, and beneath the guise, of elected politicians.
My former CBC colleague and friend Barbara Frum was an exceptional Canadian radio and television journalist. She was an astute observer and host for years on CBC Radio’s “As It Happens.” After a morning radio show once at CBC Windsor we sat over coffee in a café at the hotel where she was staying, and she commented on how regularly elected politicians either praised or vilified her:
“You can’t win and you can’t please these people. They just want good things said of them, and we can’t do that as journalists.”
Frum passed away prematurely young. Her son, David Frum, has carried on as a noted conservative writer (including as speechwriter for former U.S. president George W. Bush) and, although prominent in Republican circles, he has distanced himself from the desolate duo of Trump and Vance.
In a Sept. 18 article for The Atlantic magazine, Frum opined: “The difference: The upsetting things said by Trump and Vance are not true. The upsetting things said about Trump and Vance are true.”
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Trump’s incredibly bizarre VP candidate J.D. Vance responded in a rage-tweet: “I’d say the most important difference is that people on your team tried to kill Donald Trump twice.”
The role of media in Canada, the U.S. and most authentic democratic countries is both to report accurately and to investigate if necessary. In the U.S., with the exception of PBS, most public media are beholden to somebody, corporate or political.
Private-sector media are much more amenable to ideological and political control than public media. That may explain why politicians in Canada, especially Conservatives, hate and even loath the formidably impartial CBC.
Now and then, media can become such an annoyance that libel lawsuits are threatened. I’ve been down that road three times, including once with the Windsor Star.
David Frum made a notable comment about the relationship between the Republican party and Fox News. Responding once to criticism that Fox News had a tendency to support the Republicans, Frum once said on ABC’s Nightline program: “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we’re discovering we work for Fox.”
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Elected politicians and their hangers-on would much prefer a world where media serve them best without question. Hence the attraction of social media where almost any bit of trash or drivel can garner dormant-minded viewers.
Politicians have taken to social media like proverbial ducks to water.
For many years in Canada, prime ministers, in particular, as well as their entourages concealed within Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), have sought not to control the media but rather to control the message. Spin-doctoring press releases not just for content but for timing as well.
The late great Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan in his book “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man” coined the famous phrase: “The medium is the message.” Prime ministers and their PMO support staff craft media strategies that best serve incumbent PMs and that perhaps much less assiduously serve the public interest.
Spontaneous press conferences or “scrums” are kept to a minimum. PMO media releases and press conferences are carefully scripted and managed. House of Commons questions and answers by members of Parliament are usually scripted —been there, done that.
The controlled messages are largely geared to the medium, and more of that now includes Twitter (X) and other social media.
Perhaps I’m arguing for more independent columns like this one.
Lloyd Brown-John is a University of Windsor professor emeritus of political science and director of Canterbury ElderCollege. He can be reached at lbj@uwindsor.ca.
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